Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1834.pdf/8

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Weary and sad: thus when again He seeks to bind love's loosened chain; He finds the tears are scarcely dry Upon a cheek whose bloom is faded, The very flush of victory Is, like the brow he watches, shaded. A thousand thoughts are at her heart, His image paramount o’er all, Yet not all his, the tears that start, As mournful memories recall Scenes of another home, which yet That fond young heart cannot forget. She thinks upon that place of pride,* Which frowned upon the mountain’s side; While round it spread the ancient plain, Her steps will never cross again. And near those mighty temples† stand, The miracles of mortal hand; Where, hidden from the common eye, The past’s long buried secrets lie, Those mysteries of the first great creed, Whose mystic fancies were the seed Of every wild and vain belief, That held o’er man their empire brief, And turned beneath a southern sky, All that was faith to poetry. Hence had the Grecian fables birth, And wandered beautiful o’er earth; Till every wood, and stream, and cave, Shelter to some bright vision gave: For all of terrible and strange, That from those gloomy caverns‡ sprung, From Greece received a graceful change, That spoke another sky and tongue,